Sunday, January 4, 2009

Another beautiful crisp day today wtih temps remaining in the 20's. Great corduroy conditions. Clouds will be on the increase tonight as a huge storm hits the Pac NW bringing up to 3 feet to our old friends up at the Summit. Meanwhile a ridge moves in to SoCal today off of the Pacific. This will keep any moisture from the storm to our north. There may be a flurry or two tomorrow as the flow switches off the ocean and warmer air begins to override and mix with the cold air currently in place, but no accumulations.

The pattern of storms to our north will continue thru the week bringing us clouds from time to time. The flow will be from the west and temps will warm into the 40's all week, maxing out on Thursday in the upper 40's with places near town near 50. Thurs night/Fri a final storm will slide down inside of us changing the flow to northeast thru the weekend which will bring temps back down to the low-mid 40's with lots of sun. This will help by holding off the really warm temps as a big ridge begins to move in off the Pacific.

The ridge that moves in next weekend will bring well above normal temps for the week of the 11th and will re-direct all storms all the way up into British Columbia. Temps could hit the 60's in the lower elevations if the models are accurate with the size and position of this ridge. This will also coincide with a negative NAO and huge trough over the rest of the country. Watch the news because you may see reports of the coldest air to come into the northern plains in years.

By the following weekend (18th of Jan.), the negative NAO begins to break down and the ridge over the West Coast begins to retrograde back out over the ocean. This is evident on the models as they show the East Coast warming and storm activity returning to the Pac NW. Further retrogression of the ridge out towards Hawaii looks to return storm activity and cold to the West Coast and the Sierra around the 20th.

It looks as if ocean temps in the Pacific have continued to cool baffling most forecasters who thought we would have neutral conditions this year, or at most a weak La Nina. La Nina looks to be in full force now. Implications for the middle of Jan.-March will be quite similar to last year. The Pac NW will continue to get slammed and we should get quite a bit of snow as well. The good thing with La Nina is that although we may not get as big of storms, it is usually quite cold and almost all storms have very low snow levels. Will have to continue to watch things unfold, but looks like good things will come to those who wait once again. Just hold on for about two weeks. Meanwhile get out and enjoy the sweatshirt riding weather. BA

I studied meteorology for a couple of years at Kean University just outside of NYC. I have been an avid hobby meteorologist since I was in grade school. I look at computer models to come up with most of my forecasts. I will read discussions by people at the NWS to compare with what I'm seeing or if I'm missing something. Ed Berry from the NWS also has a great blog on global weather patterns right here on blogger.com, so you could check that out.